looks good Justin!Justin's '85 UrQ'd 4000 20vt Project - Tuning Help?
Tim: I reused the big seal from the V8 rear diff, and then bought a new smaller seal for the original 4000 case. Those are the only seals I replaced. I don't have any p/ns handy though, sorry. Give a quick look on VAGCAT and you should be able to find them, as that's what I used.
And Derek: Thanks buddy
Those headlight blanks help lower the temps under the hood considerably! I wasn't so sure until at VIR in Nov, I left the headlights in for the first few runs and then had to take them out b/c the temps were getting higher than I liked
Looks pretty good in my book:
More to come in the next few months though. Just getting settled into my new living situation and will start cracking at the 'ol girl again. Been gathering all sorts of parts Hopefully my cousin won't kill me after I overtake the garage, though.
And Derek: Thanks buddy
Those headlight blanks help lower the temps under the hood considerably! I wasn't so sure until at VIR in Nov, I left the headlights in for the first few runs and then had to take them out b/c the temps were getting higher than I liked Looks pretty good in my book:
More to come in the next few months though. Just getting settled into my new living situation and will start cracking at the 'ol girl again. Been gathering all sorts of parts
Hopefully my cousin won't kill me after I overtake the garage, though.-
Dan McBoost
Over the past few months I have been building a custom fully removable rear roll cage to go along with my "race" seats and to utilize the mounting points I had installed a while back for 6 point restraints. It wasn't an easy task to undertake, and I spent more hours than I care to admit to in designing, fitting and building this ordeal. In the end, it turned out to be exactly what I wanted, looks pretty cool and serves its purpose VERY well!
So months ago (sometime in January/Feb I think), I finally broke down and brought the old girl inside to warm up and start stripping things out.
After some brain storming, I started making a mock-up of how I wanted to do things. I needed to build some sort of "foundation" for the roll cage to sit on. The catch was, this foundation needed to be high enough that I could make the roll bar SHORT enough to fit out the door and allow me to reinstall the back seat when I wasn't going to be near the track and wanted a 4 seater again.
So out came the cereal boxes, scissors and tape! After a bit of tinkering, cutting and measuring, this is the general idea I came up with:
And removed:
From this point, it was time to start building the base. In the past, I've seen horrible pictures of the feet of the roll cages punching through the floor boards in event of a roll over, so I wanted to make sure I made a BIG foot print for the base to sit on. In hindsight, I WAY overdid it (6" x 8"), as spec for a race cage is 4" square.
But anywho, nothing wrong with a lil redneck engineering
Started by cleaning off the area being welded:
And begin piecing it all together:
and piecing some more:
and some more:
Rinse and repeat... the driver's side:
From this point on, it was time to start building the "towers" that were going to be the height of the foundation. To make life "easier" on myself, I decided to start with a 4" x 4" x .25" square tube. This proved to be excessive, and in reality I should have started with an angle iron instead of similar dimensions, but that's neither here nor there
Thanks to a local buddy, I was able to get these puppies cut and milled to be perfectly flat with the help of his dad and mini-machine shop in his garage.
We started off by cutting the piece to length, and then end milling them to make sure they're 100% flat/square:
From there, we made templates to estimate how much we needed to cope the towers to allow them to nestle in like they're suppose to:
From there, we started to play with the mill. We basically perferated along the line. He started with a bigger milling bit, but ended up moving to a smaller drill bit which did the trick:
After drilling and a bit of hammering with the cold chisel, you get:
After a fair bit of grinding and fitting, grinding and fitting, grinding and fitting... I was able to fit and tack them in place:
Driver's side:
and fully welded:
Passenger's side:
And fully welded:
To top off the towers, I made two 4" square x 3/16" plates to serve as the base for the main hoop. I welded nuts to the back side of the one plate before installing it ontop of the towers:
Now came the fun part... bending the tubing and fabricating the cage!
It all started off like so:
Yup, 2 23' pieces of 1.75" x .120 DOM tubing! I was able to score this at a deal from my cousin-in-law's buddy who had leftover from his roll cage on his jeep. Obviously transporting was a little tricky, but it worked out well!
So after measuring, and measuring again, we came up with a design for the rear hoop.
My cousin-in-law's friend was suppose to help me bend the tubing, but unfortunately time was not on his side and there was no definite time he would be able to help me out. After some looking around, I was able to find an exhaust shop in Maryland who would bend the pipe for a deal. They were Mandrel Bending Solutions (www.mandrelbend.com). I kind of wanted to learn how to do it on my own, but for the price I decided to learn later
Inorder to make transportation a tad bit easier, I cut one of the pieces in half so I didn't take someone out when driving up there in morning rushhour!
After inputting my measurements into Bend Tech Pro, we were off to the races:
Unfortunately, we messed the first piece up b/c the tech entered the bend-back info for Chromoly vs DOM, which meant that it actually overbent the tube, so instead of being a 90* bend, it was a 95* bend.
Thankfully I brought two pieces, so we used the first piece to verify everything was kosher for the final piece of tube.
And here's the cage in all it's glory!!
Kidding. This was the scrap. Again... very thankful i brought 2 pieces!
The final piece:
When he bent the hoop, I had him make it slightly taller than it needed to be so I could remove some material and make it the exact height it needed to be. So out came the tapemeasure again and off we went:
And tacked in place!
I angled it back approximately 7* from vertical (which is the blue painters tape across the top) to allow headroom over the seats if they were to be pushed all the way back.
From here began the fun... building the actual cage. Let's just say that coping pipe w/o the proper notcher is a real chore with an angle grinder. To make life easier, we ended up using 1.25" PVC (similar OD to the tubing I was using) as the template and then moving that pattern over to the tube.
Before going too crazy, I had to make the mounts for the kickers. Like many other bolt in cages to the 4000s, I decided to mount it off the wheel well vs the strut tower. While the strut towers are stronger in the grand scheme of things, the wheel wells on these cars are part of the strut tower (just further down), so they should technically be strong enough to hold up. Being that I've seen it in the past from reputable bolt in cages, I figured I'd mimic it.
Getting the piece to match the contour of the wheel well top was a little interesting, but nothing a lil action w/ my c-channel and c-clamp couldn't handle
And tacked in place:
Once the mounts were in place, I got to building the mock up piece out of PVC:
And making things match:
And yes, this is actually a template we made for matching one of the joints:
and mounting it up:
And welding it up:
Coming along nicely:
More mocking up:
Cross bracing back to the back legs:
And out of the car 90% done!
This was one of the big moments as it set in stone that I was actually going to be able to get this thing OUT of the car when I wanted to
From here, I brought it into the garage and finished welding those "hard to reach spots" so I didn't have to contort myself in the car to get to some of the funny angled pieces:
With the cage out, i was then able to start drilling the holes in the wheel wells so I can add the plates/nuts to them for mounting the back legs... I still don't understand why my neighbors don't like me :-P
and removing the coating (have I mentioned how much I hate the Audi undercoating?)
loose fitting:
And tacked in place (it's ugly! I had a hard time welding b/c I didn't do a good enough job cleaning the metal of the infernal undercoating, plus the coating that WAS around started to melt and run where I was welding. It was a big mess, but it'll work):
Unfortunately at this point, my Harbor Freight Special finally bit the dust:
If it's possible, this one was actually crappier than my LAST $15 HF special... that one at least lasted a few years. This one barely survived 5 months! At this point, I did finally bite the bullet and pick up a sweet Milwaukee angle grinder. I've been doing this enough, it's about time I get a good tool.
Once I got the rear mounts all squared away, the cage went BACK into the car so I could put the final support bars on each side:
And out and ready for final cleaning and paint:
Once the cage was done, the car went back into the garage so I could start prepping the interior to go back together. Main goal here was to make it so I could still DD this car if I so desire and keep it with all the creature comforts of a 4/5 seater, so I could tote people around if need be, plus the carpet/padding keeps the noise down considerably!
So I started off by painting the finished "foundations" to the cage:
Once the paint dried, it was time to get the carpet in. I didn't do the greatest job trimming the carpet to fit these, but it still looks pretty decent to me. Not great, but it will do the trick:
And then the cage got a little loving too:
And finally, installed with my nice red harnesses in place
Wanted to give a big thanks to Hadyn for answering a lot of questions for me and added advice in the building of the cage, hoop, etc etc etc.
I will make another post later on about the mounts and what not for the seats that I installed. Don't have it in me to type that up right now
So months ago (sometime in January/Feb I think), I finally broke down and brought the old girl inside to warm up and start stripping things out.
After some brain storming, I started making a mock-up of how I wanted to do things. I needed to build some sort of "foundation" for the roll cage to sit on. The catch was, this foundation needed to be high enough that I could make the roll bar SHORT enough to fit out the door and allow me to reinstall the back seat when I wasn't going to be near the track and wanted a 4 seater again.
So out came the cereal boxes, scissors and tape! After a bit of tinkering, cutting and measuring, this is the general idea I came up with:
And removed:
From this point, it was time to start building the base. In the past, I've seen horrible pictures of the feet of the roll cages punching through the floor boards in event of a roll over, so I wanted to make sure I made a BIG foot print for the base to sit on. In hindsight, I WAY overdid it (6" x 8"), as spec for a race cage is 4" square.
But anywho, nothing wrong with a lil redneck engineering
Started by cleaning off the area being welded:
And begin piecing it all together:
and piecing some more:
and some more:
Rinse and repeat... the driver's side:
From this point on, it was time to start building the "towers" that were going to be the height of the foundation. To make life "easier" on myself, I decided to start with a 4" x 4" x .25" square tube. This proved to be excessive, and in reality I should have started with an angle iron instead of similar dimensions, but that's neither here nor there
Thanks to a local buddy, I was able to get these puppies cut and milled to be perfectly flat with the help of his dad and mini-machine shop in his garage.
We started off by cutting the piece to length, and then end milling them to make sure they're 100% flat/square:
From there, we made templates to estimate how much we needed to cope the towers to allow them to nestle in like they're suppose to:
From there, we started to play with the mill. We basically perferated along the line. He started with a bigger milling bit, but ended up moving to a smaller drill bit which did the trick:
After drilling and a bit of hammering with the cold chisel, you get:
After a fair bit of grinding and fitting, grinding and fitting, grinding and fitting... I was able to fit and tack them in place:
Driver's side:
and fully welded:
Passenger's side:
And fully welded:
To top off the towers, I made two 4" square x 3/16" plates to serve as the base for the main hoop. I welded nuts to the back side of the one plate before installing it ontop of the towers:
Now came the fun part... bending the tubing and fabricating the cage!
It all started off like so:
Yup, 2 23' pieces of 1.75" x .120 DOM tubing! I was able to score this at a deal from my cousin-in-law's buddy who had leftover from his roll cage on his jeep. Obviously transporting was a little tricky, but it worked out well!
So after measuring, and measuring again, we came up with a design for the rear hoop.
My cousin-in-law's friend was suppose to help me bend the tubing, but unfortunately time was not on his side and there was no definite time he would be able to help me out. After some looking around, I was able to find an exhaust shop in Maryland who would bend the pipe for a deal. They were Mandrel Bending Solutions (www.mandrelbend.com). I kind of wanted to learn how to do it on my own, but for the price I decided to learn later
Inorder to make transportation a tad bit easier, I cut one of the pieces in half so I didn't take someone out when driving up there in morning rushhour!
After inputting my measurements into Bend Tech Pro, we were off to the races:
Unfortunately, we messed the first piece up b/c the tech entered the bend-back info for Chromoly vs DOM, which meant that it actually overbent the tube, so instead of being a 90* bend, it was a 95* bend.
Thankfully I brought two pieces, so we used the first piece to verify everything was kosher for the final piece of tube.
And here's the cage in all it's glory!!
Kidding. This was the scrap. Again... very thankful i brought 2 pieces!
The final piece:
When he bent the hoop, I had him make it slightly taller than it needed to be so I could remove some material and make it the exact height it needed to be. So out came the tapemeasure again and off we went:
And tacked in place!
I angled it back approximately 7* from vertical (which is the blue painters tape across the top) to allow headroom over the seats if they were to be pushed all the way back.
From here began the fun... building the actual cage. Let's just say that coping pipe w/o the proper notcher is a real chore with an angle grinder. To make life easier, we ended up using 1.25" PVC (similar OD to the tubing I was using) as the template and then moving that pattern over to the tube.
Before going too crazy, I had to make the mounts for the kickers. Like many other bolt in cages to the 4000s, I decided to mount it off the wheel well vs the strut tower. While the strut towers are stronger in the grand scheme of things, the wheel wells on these cars are part of the strut tower (just further down), so they should technically be strong enough to hold up. Being that I've seen it in the past from reputable bolt in cages, I figured I'd mimic it.
Getting the piece to match the contour of the wheel well top was a little interesting, but nothing a lil action w/ my c-channel and c-clamp couldn't handle
And tacked in place:
Once the mounts were in place, I got to building the mock up piece out of PVC:
And making things match:
And yes, this is actually a template we made for matching one of the joints:
and mounting it up:
And welding it up:
Coming along nicely:
More mocking up:
Cross bracing back to the back legs:
And out of the car 90% done!
This was one of the big moments as it set in stone that I was actually going to be able to get this thing OUT of the car when I wanted to
From here, I brought it into the garage and finished welding those "hard to reach spots" so I didn't have to contort myself in the car to get to some of the funny angled pieces:
With the cage out, i was then able to start drilling the holes in the wheel wells so I can add the plates/nuts to them for mounting the back legs... I still don't understand why my neighbors don't like me :-P
and removing the coating (have I mentioned how much I hate the Audi undercoating?)
loose fitting:
And tacked in place (it's ugly! I had a hard time welding b/c I didn't do a good enough job cleaning the metal of the infernal undercoating, plus the coating that WAS around started to melt and run where I was welding. It was a big mess, but it'll work):
Unfortunately at this point, my Harbor Freight Special finally bit the dust:
If it's possible, this one was actually crappier than my LAST $15 HF special... that one at least lasted a few years. This one barely survived 5 months! At this point, I did finally bite the bullet and pick up a sweet Milwaukee angle grinder. I've been doing this enough, it's about time I get a good tool.
Once I got the rear mounts all squared away, the cage went BACK into the car so I could put the final support bars on each side:
And out and ready for final cleaning and paint:
Once the cage was done, the car went back into the garage so I could start prepping the interior to go back together. Main goal here was to make it so I could still DD this car if I so desire and keep it with all the creature comforts of a 4/5 seater, so I could tote people around if need be, plus the carpet/padding keeps the noise down considerably!
So I started off by painting the finished "foundations" to the cage:
Once the paint dried, it was time to get the carpet in. I didn't do the greatest job trimming the carpet to fit these, but it still looks pretty decent to me. Not great, but it will do the trick:
And then the cage got a little loving too:
And finally, installed with my nice red harnesses in place
Wanted to give a big thanks to Hadyn for answering a lot of questions for me and added advice in the building of the cage, hoop, etc etc etc.
I will make another post later on about the mounts and what not for the seats that I installed. Don't have it in me to type that up right now
:woowoo: :woowoo:
24v-VR6T-CQ BEAST http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=193#p37887
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
-
audifreakjim
- Posts: 2142
- Joined: Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:00 pm
hey jsutin are those 16" sl's?
24v-VR6T-CQ BEAST http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=193#p37887
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
Rocket SLC wrote:[/quote]
What did you do?[/quote]
i know but i wont ruin the surprise
i know but i wont ruin the surprise
24v-VR6T-CQ BEAST http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=193#p37887
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
Round 2 - Race Seats!
So I wanted to put race seats in the car to go with the swanky rear roll cage. Catch was, I didn't want to drill MORE holes in the floor boards, as locations were starting to get a little bit scarce with the fuel/brake lines. I wanted to utilize the OEM mounting points. I could have bought the universal mounts from Corbeau, but at first glance from the website, they too were bolt in.
After a bit of asking around, Ben Swann came through and donated a driver's front seat from a 90 to act as my sacrificial lamb so-to-speak.
I started off with the base:
After a bit of undoing, cutting, etc this is what I had:
At this point, I started to realize what a royal PITA it was going to be to make this mount work, so I decided to give working on the univeral mount that came with the seats when I bought them (from a '99 Mustang). Unfortunately, I had to modify these brackets to allow it to slide back far enough to let someone over 6' tall fit in the car. So after a bit of cutting and welding, this is what I came up with:
Unfortunately, this bracket would have required even MORE work to get to fit properly, as the tabs weren't far enough down to reach the floor boards:
From this point, I realized it would have taken just as much effort to make this work vs the route I was going before, so I went back to my original plan and started to plan out making it utilize all the OEM mounting points.
Step one was to build a frame to mount to the seat:
Then fitting the slider portion:
And rear support brackets:
And a rough assembly:
At this point, I had spaced the seat up approx 1.5" b/c I *thought* I was matching the seat height to the OEM seat.
After test fitting in the car (like so as well as with seat ontop), I realized it was WAY too high. I could barely fit my hand (flat) on the top of my head. So obviously that wasn't going to work well for anyone taller than me, or me with a helmet!
Once removed, I took out the spacer that was lifting the seat so all the sliding gear was now mounted directly to the frame:
Next came the fun part... the rear sliders. I started off by mounting an angle iron to the frame itself, which was going to pose as the main mounting point for hte rear sliders:
The piece that made this EXTREMELY fun was trying to make sure that the sliders were a) properly spaced and b) squarely mounted so that they slid in the rails properly.
After a LOT of fooling around, here's how I got things to sit properly:
THen came the triming (old pix, so same HF grinder I burned up in the post above)
And a rough fitting:
8)
From this point, I took it out of the car and added some bracing to the rear legs JUST to be sure that it all held together:
Then off to paint:
and installed on the seat (using ALL OEM mounting points and hardware, so seat slides like stock):
From this point, I started on the Pass side. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to a seat to hack apart. SO instead, I decided to try to mimic the universal brackets they sold in the past for these cars. Let's just say this was a ROYAL PITA, and I will be redoing it to match what I did on the driver's seat once I get a hold of a spare 4000 or 90 pass seat. But for now, it will work.
So I started off with the rear portion to get the spacing correct:
and then modified the universal bracket so it sat low enough so I didn't hit my head on the roof of the car:
Then building it up:
and test fitting:
At this point, the frame worked, but was a bit too flimsy for my tastes. So I decided to add some extra material to help that out:
Once all done, I stopped at one of the shops on the local base and sandblasted it so it was nice and clean:
To make it so I could reuse the OEM seat belt mount, my friend's dad came to the rescue ONE more time and cut me this on the lathe:
Once I got that tacked in, I painted and installed the bracket. It was a royal PITA to get this thing installed, and even more difficult to attach the sub belt clips for the 6 point harnesses. So, it's in for now, but I will be redoing it down the road like I said.
I will snap a few more shots of the seats/harnesses installed when I get a spare moment, as I didn't seem to upload any to my picasa site.
And next installment will be... what happened at VIR :(
So I wanted to put race seats in the car to go with the swanky rear roll cage. Catch was, I didn't want to drill MORE holes in the floor boards, as locations were starting to get a little bit scarce with the fuel/brake lines. I wanted to utilize the OEM mounting points. I could have bought the universal mounts from Corbeau, but at first glance from the website, they too were bolt in.
After a bit of asking around, Ben Swann came through and donated a driver's front seat from a 90 to act as my sacrificial lamb so-to-speak.
I started off with the base:
After a bit of undoing, cutting, etc this is what I had:
At this point, I started to realize what a royal PITA it was going to be to make this mount work, so I decided to give working on the univeral mount that came with the seats when I bought them (from a '99 Mustang). Unfortunately, I had to modify these brackets to allow it to slide back far enough to let someone over 6' tall fit in the car. So after a bit of cutting and welding, this is what I came up with:
Unfortunately, this bracket would have required even MORE work to get to fit properly, as the tabs weren't far enough down to reach the floor boards:
From this point, I realized it would have taken just as much effort to make this work vs the route I was going before, so I went back to my original plan and started to plan out making it utilize all the OEM mounting points.
Step one was to build a frame to mount to the seat:
Then fitting the slider portion:
And rear support brackets:
And a rough assembly:
At this point, I had spaced the seat up approx 1.5" b/c I *thought* I was matching the seat height to the OEM seat.
After test fitting in the car (like so as well as with seat ontop), I realized it was WAY too high. I could barely fit my hand (flat) on the top of my head. So obviously that wasn't going to work well for anyone taller than me, or me with a helmet!
Once removed, I took out the spacer that was lifting the seat so all the sliding gear was now mounted directly to the frame:
Next came the fun part... the rear sliders. I started off by mounting an angle iron to the frame itself, which was going to pose as the main mounting point for hte rear sliders:
The piece that made this EXTREMELY fun was trying to make sure that the sliders were a) properly spaced and b) squarely mounted so that they slid in the rails properly.
After a LOT of fooling around, here's how I got things to sit properly:
THen came the triming (old pix, so same HF grinder I burned up in the post above
)And a rough fitting:
8)
From this point, I took it out of the car and added some bracing to the rear legs JUST to be sure that it all held together:
Then off to paint:
and installed on the seat (using ALL OEM mounting points and hardware, so seat slides like stock):
From this point, I started on the Pass side. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to a seat to hack apart. SO instead, I decided to try to mimic the universal brackets they sold in the past for these cars. Let's just say this was a ROYAL PITA, and I will be redoing it to match what I did on the driver's seat once I get a hold of a spare 4000 or 90 pass seat. But for now, it will work.
So I started off with the rear portion to get the spacing correct:
and then modified the universal bracket so it sat low enough so I didn't hit my head on the roof of the car:
Then building it up:
and test fitting:
At this point, the frame worked, but was a bit too flimsy for my tastes. So I decided to add some extra material to help that out:
Once all done, I stopped at one of the shops on the local base and sandblasted it so it was nice and clean:
To make it so I could reuse the OEM seat belt mount, my friend's dad came to the rescue ONE more time and cut me this on the lathe:
Once I got that tacked in, I painted and installed the bracket. It was a royal PITA to get this thing installed, and even more difficult to attach the sub belt clips for the 6 point harnesses. So, it's in for now, but I will be redoing it down the road like I said.
I will snap a few more shots of the seats/harnesses installed when I get a spare moment, as I didn't seem to upload any to my picasa site.
And next installment will be... what happened at VIR :(
Round 2 - Race Seats!
So I wanted to put race seats in the car to go with the swanky rear roll cage. Catch was, I didn't want to drill MORE holes in the floor boards, as locations were starting to get a little bit scarce with the fuel/brake lines. I wanted to utilize the OEM mounting points. I could have bought the universal mounts from Corbeau, but at first glance from the website, they too were bolt in.
After a bit of asking around, Ben Swann came through and donated a driver's front seat from a 90 to act as my sacrificial lamb so-to-speak.
I started off with the base:
After a bit of undoing, cutting, etc this is what I had:
At this point, I started to realize what a royal PITA it was going to be to make this mount work, so I decided to give working on the univeral mount that came with the seats when I bought them (from a '99 Mustang). Unfortunately, I had to modify these brackets to allow it to slide back far enough to let someone over 6' tall fit in the car. So after a bit of cutting and welding, this is what I came up with:
Unfortunately, this bracket would have required even MORE work to get to fit properly, as the tabs weren't far enough down to reach the floor boards:
From this point, I realized it would have taken just as much effort to make this work vs the route I was going before, so I went back to my original plan and started to plan out making it utilize all the OEM mounting points.
Step one was to build a frame to mount to the seat:
Then fitting the slider portion:
And rear support brackets:
And a rough assembly:
At this point, I had spaced the seat up approx 1.5" b/c I *thought* I was matching the seat height to the OEM seat.
After test fitting in the car (like so as well as with seat ontop), I realized it was WAY too high. I could barely fit my hand (flat) on the top of my head. So obviously that wasn't going to work well for anyone taller than me, or me with a helmet!
Once removed, I took out the spacer that was lifting the seat so all the sliding gear was now mounted directly to the frame:
Next came the fun part... the rear sliders. I started off by mounting an angle iron to the frame itself, which was going to pose as the main mounting point for hte rear sliders:
The piece that made this EXTREMELY fun was trying to make sure that the sliders were a) properly spaced and b) squarely mounted so that they slid in the rails properly.
After a LOT of fooling around, here's how I got things to sit properly:
THen came the triming (old pix, so same HF grinder I burned up in the post above)
And a rough fitting:
8)
From this point, I took it out of the car and added some bracing to the rear legs JUST to be sure that it all held together:
Then off to paint:
and installed on the seat (using ALL OEM mounting points and hardware, so seat slides like stock):
From this point, I started on the Pass side. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to a seat to hack apart. SO instead, I decided to try to mimic the universal brackets they sold in the past for these cars. Let's just say this was a ROYAL PITA, and I will be redoing it to match what I did on the driver's seat once I get a hold of a spare 4000 or 90 pass seat. But for now, it will work.
So I started off with the rear portion to get the spacing correct:
and then modified the universal bracket so it sat low enough so I didn't hit my head on the roof of the car:
Then building it up:
and test fitting:
At this point, the frame worked, but was a bit too flimsy for my tastes. So I decided to add some extra material to help that out:
Once all done, I stopped at one of the shops on the local base and sandblasted it so it was nice and clean:
To make it so I could reuse the OEM seat belt mount, my friend's dad came to the rescue ONE more time and cut me this on the lathe:
Once I got that tacked in, I painted and installed the bracket. It was a royal PITA to get this thing installed, and even more difficult to attach the sub belt clips for the 6 point harnesses. So, it's in for now, but I will be redoing it down the road like I said.
I will snap a few more shots of the seats/harnesses installed when I get a spare moment, as I didn't seem to upload any to my picasa site.
And next installment will be... what happened at VIR :(
So I wanted to put race seats in the car to go with the swanky rear roll cage. Catch was, I didn't want to drill MORE holes in the floor boards, as locations were starting to get a little bit scarce with the fuel/brake lines. I wanted to utilize the OEM mounting points. I could have bought the universal mounts from Corbeau, but at first glance from the website, they too were bolt in.
After a bit of asking around, Ben Swann came through and donated a driver's front seat from a 90 to act as my sacrificial lamb so-to-speak.
I started off with the base:
After a bit of undoing, cutting, etc this is what I had:
At this point, I started to realize what a royal PITA it was going to be to make this mount work, so I decided to give working on the univeral mount that came with the seats when I bought them (from a '99 Mustang). Unfortunately, I had to modify these brackets to allow it to slide back far enough to let someone over 6' tall fit in the car. So after a bit of cutting and welding, this is what I came up with:
Unfortunately, this bracket would have required even MORE work to get to fit properly, as the tabs weren't far enough down to reach the floor boards:
From this point, I realized it would have taken just as much effort to make this work vs the route I was going before, so I went back to my original plan and started to plan out making it utilize all the OEM mounting points.
Step one was to build a frame to mount to the seat:
Then fitting the slider portion:
And rear support brackets:
And a rough assembly:
At this point, I had spaced the seat up approx 1.5" b/c I *thought* I was matching the seat height to the OEM seat.
After test fitting in the car (like so as well as with seat ontop), I realized it was WAY too high. I could barely fit my hand (flat) on the top of my head. So obviously that wasn't going to work well for anyone taller than me, or me with a helmet!
Once removed, I took out the spacer that was lifting the seat so all the sliding gear was now mounted directly to the frame:
Next came the fun part... the rear sliders. I started off by mounting an angle iron to the frame itself, which was going to pose as the main mounting point for hte rear sliders:
The piece that made this EXTREMELY fun was trying to make sure that the sliders were a) properly spaced and b) squarely mounted so that they slid in the rails properly.
After a LOT of fooling around, here's how I got things to sit properly:
THen came the triming (old pix, so same HF grinder I burned up in the post above
)And a rough fitting:
8)
From this point, I took it out of the car and added some bracing to the rear legs JUST to be sure that it all held together:
Then off to paint:
and installed on the seat (using ALL OEM mounting points and hardware, so seat slides like stock):
From this point, I started on the Pass side. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to a seat to hack apart. SO instead, I decided to try to mimic the universal brackets they sold in the past for these cars. Let's just say this was a ROYAL PITA, and I will be redoing it to match what I did on the driver's seat once I get a hold of a spare 4000 or 90 pass seat. But for now, it will work.
So I started off with the rear portion to get the spacing correct:
and then modified the universal bracket so it sat low enough so I didn't hit my head on the roof of the car:
Then building it up:
and test fitting:
At this point, the frame worked, but was a bit too flimsy for my tastes. So I decided to add some extra material to help that out:
Once all done, I stopped at one of the shops on the local base and sandblasted it so it was nice and clean:
To make it so I could reuse the OEM seat belt mount, my friend's dad came to the rescue ONE more time and cut me this on the lathe:
Once I got that tacked in, I painted and installed the bracket. It was a royal PITA to get this thing installed, and even more difficult to attach the sub belt clips for the 6 point harnesses. So, it's in for now, but I will be redoing it down the road like I said.
I will snap a few more shots of the seats/harnesses installed when I get a spare moment, as I didn't seem to upload any to my picasa site.
And next installment will be... what happened at VIR :(
oooooh the VIR incident hehe, imnot telling
24v-VR6T-CQ BEAST http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=193#p37887
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
16v-ABA-T VEMS O1E ETC 4Kq http://www.theprojectpad.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=201#p38264
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jbrentd
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audifreakjim
- Posts: 2142
- Joined: Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:00 pm
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a_CQ
uh oh...what happened at VIR? I hope it doesn't involve tires and momentary stops....or worse off, testing that roll bar.
And speaking of that, I just saw your posts/pictures of it. Is the angle between main hoop and bars going back to wheel wells substantial? Most roll bars I've seen are not that "compact".
And speaking of that, I just saw your posts/pictures of it. Is the angle between main hoop and bars going back to wheel wells substantial? Most roll bars I've seen are not that "compact".
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glibobbo21
- Posts: 659
- Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 11:51 am
Yup, it's a flux core welder. As for fab tools, all I have is an angle grinder (now a much nicer one), cheapy HF welder, and a slew of vice grips, screwdrivers and a 90* die grinder for my aircompressor. So, pretty limited. I should have bought a vice for my workbench years ago, but never have. Always made due, but what have you.
As for VIR, unfortunately I did have a date with a tire wall :( And it was more due to my own fault for running the tires I was running vs true driver's error or overdriving the car, or driving beyond my abilities. THANKFULLY I really didn't "test" the roll cage at all, but I decided that the right side of the car needed some remodelling :bashtard:
On the first session of the second day I took out the 'ol girl as I had other days. As I came down the back straight, I let off the gas and put on the brakes about when I normally did (around the 3/2.5 marker) the entire day before with little to no drama. Unfortunately, this time didn't go as nicely I put on the brakes and I just felt like I was trying to stop on grease. Car was just not biting. I ended up locking the tires. I pumped the brakes and modulated them trying to get it to the point I felt the car would be able to turn, but never reached that point. I decided to take the 'ol girl straight off b/c I thought I wasn't going to be able to make the turn w/o spinning it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the right decision. Once I hit the grass, I was basically skating on ice. I pumped the brakes, counter-steered, downshifted, pretty much everything but yanking the e-brake and slamming the gas hoping to rally drive my way out of the mess I was in.
I ended up sliding into the wall rear quarter panel first, then slapping around to the front fender. I was going no more than 15mph or so I'd say, so it wasn't too bad of an impact. I was sick when I hit. Car stalled out, but fired right up and I backed it out and drove her into the pits.
My buddy was there taking pictures, and I was so lucky that he was at the right place at the right time:
This was as I was pulling back onto the track.
And the carnage pix...
In the tech shed assessing the damage:
I think it's this part that upsets me the most. The front fender is an easy bolt on, but this one is going to take a bit of work to fix :(
Luckily, I got a good group of friends I go to these events with, and they're always there willing to cheer me up... lol. To give a little background, we always screw with my one buddy's M3. Pink ribbons, spray painting audi things (with wash off paint) on it, and pin striping it with green/pink duct tape, you name it. So this was my payback as I've slid off the track a couple times in my outtings to VIR... no damage to date, so this has been the worst.
But to go along w/ my off roading/rally lines, I get this:
But even when she's crunched, she sports it well:
The damage wasn't bad enough to keep me off the track. I pulled the front fender so it cleared the tire, pulled the rear lip on the rear to make sure, and swapped out my tires. Turns out my R-comps were WAY WAY WAY beyond their useful life. I bought them used, and figured I had one more event out of them. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. They were "loose" the entire event, but I just attributed it to the car being a tad bit tail happy. Unfortunately, after putting my street tires back on (RE050As), I actually had MORE grip than with the rcomps. So chaulk this up to an unfortunate lesson learned. I won't make that mistake again, that's for sure.
She does look good on track though (pic from around oak tree):
And of course, I actually had a video of the incident. You can enjoy my hands going back and forth trying to avoid the wall :(
http://vimeo.com/11125460
But with this batch of lemons I've been served, it's time to make a lil lemonade, as this is now forcing my hand so-to-speak to start doing bodywork on this car a little sooner than I had anticipated. On the brighter side, I will be making the car a little more fun, so stay tuned
As for VIR, unfortunately I did have a date with a tire wall :( And it was more due to my own fault for running the tires I was running vs true driver's error or overdriving the car, or driving beyond my abilities. THANKFULLY I really didn't "test" the roll cage at all, but I decided that the right side of the car needed some remodelling :bashtard:
On the first session of the second day I took out the 'ol girl as I had other days. As I came down the back straight, I let off the gas and put on the brakes about when I normally did (around the 3/2.5 marker) the entire day before with little to no drama. Unfortunately, this time didn't go as nicely I put on the brakes and I just felt like I was trying to stop on grease. Car was just not biting. I ended up locking the tires. I pumped the brakes and modulated them trying to get it to the point I felt the car would be able to turn, but never reached that point. I decided to take the 'ol girl straight off b/c I thought I wasn't going to be able to make the turn w/o spinning it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the right decision. Once I hit the grass, I was basically skating on ice. I pumped the brakes, counter-steered, downshifted, pretty much everything but yanking the e-brake and slamming the gas hoping to rally drive my way out of the mess I was in.
I ended up sliding into the wall rear quarter panel first, then slapping around to the front fender. I was going no more than 15mph or so I'd say, so it wasn't too bad of an impact. I was sick when I hit. Car stalled out, but fired right up and I backed it out and drove her into the pits.
My buddy was there taking pictures, and I was so lucky that he was at the right place at the right time:
This was as I was pulling back onto the track.
And the carnage pix...
In the tech shed assessing the damage:
I think it's this part that upsets me the most. The front fender is an easy bolt on, but this one is going to take a bit of work to fix :(
Luckily, I got a good group of friends I go to these events with, and they're always there willing to cheer me up... lol. To give a little background, we always screw with my one buddy's M3. Pink ribbons, spray painting audi things (with wash off paint) on it, and pin striping it with green/pink duct tape, you name it. So this was my payback as I've slid off the track a couple times in my outtings to VIR... no damage to date, so this has been the worst.
But to go along w/ my off roading/rally lines, I get this:
But even when she's crunched, she sports it well:
The damage wasn't bad enough to keep me off the track. I pulled the front fender so it cleared the tire, pulled the rear lip on the rear to make sure, and swapped out my tires. Turns out my R-comps were WAY WAY WAY beyond their useful life. I bought them used, and figured I had one more event out of them. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. They were "loose" the entire event, but I just attributed it to the car being a tad bit tail happy. Unfortunately, after putting my street tires back on (RE050As), I actually had MORE grip than with the rcomps. So chaulk this up to an unfortunate lesson learned. I won't make that mistake again, that's for sure.
She does look good on track though (pic from around oak tree):
And of course, I actually had a video of the incident. You can enjoy my hands going back and forth trying to avoid the wall :(
http://vimeo.com/11125460
But with this batch of lemons I've been served, it's time to make a lil lemonade, as this is now forcing my hand so-to-speak to start doing bodywork on this car a little sooner than I had anticipated. On the brighter side, I will be making the car a little more fun, so stay tuned
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a_CQ
Oh man, that's not that bad at all....but it really looked like you could have made it...of course, easier said from here..
So how old were those tires? And what were they? The ones on the back of the car don't look worn at all..
I would just punch out the rear q-panel as best you can and call it a day...
So how old were those tires? And what were they? The ones on the back of the car don't look worn at all..
I would just punch out the rear q-panel as best you can and call it a day...
No idea how old the tires were. They were used, and used hard. I used them for about 4 days (so 12-16 or so heat cycles) before this event. They were way past their prime, and while they looked OK, they're actually hard as a rock (now that I know what I'm looking for). I did notice when I took them off the wheels last night that they were starting to dry-rot too. Wasn't visible until I started to flex the sidewall when compressing them to get them unseated from the rim w/ the tire machine.
The Monday morning quarter back in me says - yes, I probably could have made the turn. My instructor even said so afterwards. At the time, I just didn't feel like I had the traction to do so, and felt like I would have set the car off into a spin, which would have ended uglier than it did. Hindsight is always 20/20 though, and I have the knowledge for the next time. Never like to learn this way, but it happens.
Unfortunately, I can't stand looking at the car like this. Not in my being to drive a dented up car... lol. I have a 4000 shell already sourced that I will be removing parts off of to fix this up... and then some other spices to add to the pot as time allows.
The Monday morning quarter back in me says - yes, I probably could have made the turn. My instructor even said so afterwards. At the time, I just didn't feel like I had the traction to do so, and felt like I would have set the car off into a spin, which would have ended uglier than it did. Hindsight is always 20/20 though, and I have the knowledge for the next time. Never like to learn this way, but it happens.
Unfortunately, I can't stand looking at the car like this. Not in my being to drive a dented up car... lol. I have a 4000 shell already sourced that I will be removing parts off of to fix this up... and then some other spices to add to the pot as time allows.